Tag: xbox

One of the problems with putting backwards compatibility in the hands of publishers and developers to pick and choose which games get brought forward is that they go out of business and can’t make a decision, make bad choices based on financial decisions, or in this case Microsoft has decided that they’ve done enough and will stop updating the Xbox 360 and original Xbox compatibility lists for the Xbox One.

We’ve listened closely to community feedback and respect the game libraries you’ve built throughout the last 18 years. That’s why we’re taking our work a step further and announced this week that thousands of games from all four generations will be playable on Project Scarlett. As such, we have now shifted our focus to help make the games you love playing on Xbox One compatible with future Xbox hardware. After this week, we have no plans to add additional Original Xbox or Xbox 360 titles to the catalog on Xbox One, but we’re excited to continue our work on Xbox compatibility across platforms and devices, which remains a top priority.

Microsoft have released a final update with eight more games from the original Xbox and sixteen Xbox 360 games brought forward (Too Human is free for some reason?), and it’s good that it can be assumed that these backwards compatible games were actually tested, but the backward compatibility story isn’t great unless a generic method is released to support every older game. Not just the ones that Microsoft receives approval to support.

Unique games like Steel Battalion, licensed games like Spider-Man 2, some of the best Burnout games, sorta-interesting war games like Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, classic stompy stompy games like Mechassault, Chronicles of Riddick, Project Gotham Racing. There aren’t as many as we lost when the PlayStation 2 backwards compatibility died off on the PlayStation 3, but Microsoft had the chance to make every Xbox and Xbox 360 game playable on hardware they still sell and support, and blew it.

Microsoft released a list of 13 original Xbox games that can run on the Xbox One through a disc or download today.

Here’s the list:

BLACK

BloodRayne 2

Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge

Dead to Rights

Fuzion Frenzy

Grabbed by the Ghoulies

King of Fighters Neowave

Ninja Gaiden Black

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Psychonauts

Red Faction II

Sid Meier’s Pirates!

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Xbox backwards compatibility was originally announced only with Crimson Skies at E3 2017. These games won’t have any multiplayer as Microsoft took down the Xbox Live peer-to-peer matching service for the original Xbox years ago.

I’ve hammered on the PlayStation 4‘s lack of backwards comparability enough, but it’s still embarrassing that Sony is charging for PS2 games to be downloaded to the PS4, as well as streaming PS3 games to the PS4 when Microsoft actually has this backwards compatibility program. The only downside to Microsoft’s program is that it requires the original publisher to approve their game being included.

…it feels like Microsoft is less interested in challenging Sony with this high-end console than harvesting their hardcore Xbox fans for yet another console purchase.

I don’t doubt that this console will live up to its technical promises, but it won’t offer much to anyone who already has an Xbox One, it’ll still play the same games. Unlike an iPhone upgrade, the smaller physical form-factor won’t make the Xbox One X any more pocketable. A more powerful desktop computer can also run many of the same exclusive games in Windows 10.

Microsoft stepped up its commitment to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, backing a proven winner and this year’s true phenomenon in what amounts to quite a coup for the Xbox brand, but the messaging was all over the place. This, it seems, is an exclusive in that very loose definition of the word, with all sorts of obfuscation being peddled out when it comes to future versions on other platforms. Maybe if Phil Spencer hadn’t skipped this week’s show he might have advised that, mindful of a Gamescom from the not-too-distant past and the muddied reveal of another Xbox ‘exclusive’, you can’t pull the wool over people’s eyes for too long.

There were better signs elsewhere, and the list of 100-plus games that will be receiving updates to make the most of the Xbox One X hardware makes for impressive reading – the promise of an improved and definitive console version of The Witcher 3 is almost enough alone to justify the upgrade, and elsewhere there’s an appealing list of games that will benefit from a facelift. But at this point in the console lifecycle, Microsoft needs more than prettier versions of multiplatform games if it’s to make serious inroads into Sony’s considerable lead this generation.

At this point I’m pretty sure that in general people aren’t interested in more expensive mid-generation console upgrades to support 4K televisions unless they have a tremendous amount of disposable income.

The argument that people would buy a desktop computer as powerful also doesn’t seem to hold water. Are people really buying them in droves? Where are the boastful hardware companies filling press release pipelines with numbers? I haven’t seen them, but maybe I’m looking in the wrong places.

I get the sense that people are pretty displeased with the PlayStation 4 Pro, as well, but at least Sony has truly exclusive games like Uncharted and that won’t also be available on Windows 10.

That could change later on. In the future this could be the baseline version of the Xbox One and some games could require the Xbox One X to run at all. The same is true of the Playstation 4 Pro, and I wouldn’t recommend buying either of the original Xbox One or the original Playstation 4 at this point.

So, the fear of being left behind when games might require the upgraded consoles, that’s basically all I’ve got for reasons to buy the Xbox One X or PlayStation 4 Pro today. Maybe Microsoft and Sony don’t want to tank sales of the the Xbox One S and PlayStation 4 Amateur. Is something going to change between now and November 7th?

Just last August Microsoft released the first revision to the Xbox One, the Xbox One S enabled playback and upscaling of video to 4K.
It was bizarre that last E3 Microsoft announced two new versions of the confusingly named Xbox One, the S and they also hinted at an upcoming “Project Scorpio.”

Could you imagine Apple announcing an iPhone 9 and hinting at what is to come in the iPhone 10? It would have the potential to tank sales of the 9 especially if the 9 was as meek an upgrade as the Xbox One S was to the original Xbox One.

While the Xbox One S had the ability to upscale video to 4K, the Xbox One X should actually be able to run games at a 4K resolution without upscaling. Although it will add graphical updates to older games that haven’t been upgraded for the Xbox One X, Microsoft promises “True 4K” with this console and supersampling from 4K to 1080p if you don’t yet have a 4K display. Nvidia calls this feature “Dynamic super resolutions.” Think of 4K as an incredible chef versus a good amateur chef as 1080p. Scaling down from 4K to 1080p is like the amateur chef watching the incredible one and attempting to recreate the same dish. You’ll end up with something better than if the good amateur had simply tried to make it on their own.

Microsoft is all about these specifications, and there is a price to be paid for them at $500. $100 more than Sony’s Playstation 4 Pro, and the Xbox One S can be had for $250 to $300 which leaves a huge price gap between the two Xbox One consoles.

It’s a strange price to pick when Sony’s PlayStation has outsold Microsoft’s Xbox, but it feels like Microsoft is less interested in challenging Sony with this high-end console than harvesting their hardcore Xbox fans for yet another console purchase.

I don’t doubt that this console will live up to its technical promises, but it won’t offer much to anyone who already has an Xbox One, it’ll still play the same games. Unlike an iPhone upgrade, the smaller physical form-factor won’t make the Xbox One X any more pocketable. A more powerful desktop computer can also run many of the same exclusive games in Windows 10. At least it could if my Microsoft Account would work in Windows 10.

That could change later on. In the future this could be the baseline version of the Xbox One and some games could require the Xbox One X to run at all. The same is true of the Playstation 4 Pro, and I wouldn’t recommend buying either of the original Xbox One or the original Playstation 4 at this point.

Forza Motorsport 7

Racing games have always been showpieces for graphical prowess, and that’s why Microsoft’s racing software has a trade-off each year. One year is a game in the Forza Horizon open-world racing series, the next year is Forza Motorsport’s take on competing with Sony’s Gran Turismo. The cars and racetrack and weather effects look pretty. I don’t really care for non-Horizon games in the Forza series. The best part of the Forza Motorsport trailer is the use of K.Flay’s Blood in the Cut. Great song.

Microsoft also unveiled a new physical car from Porche on-stage during this announcement. Weird.

It’ll be out on Xbox One and Windows 10 on October 3rd.

Metro Exodus

The Metro series hasn’t been exclusive to the Xbox. They’re beloved first-person shooters, but I’ve always had a difficult time getting used to the gameplay mechanics. It was always crazy that the standard currency in them was ammunition. This made any combat experience a trade-off. Fight with cheap ammo, or watch money flight out of your guns and be more effective in combat. In Exodus the hook like we’ve moved on to an open-world post-nuclear apocalypse.

It’ll be out in 2018 for Xbox One and Windows.

Assassin’s Creed: Origins

Speaking of games I haven’t finished, I haven’t finished an Assassin’s Creed game since 3. With Origins the game has gone to a historical depiction of Egypt with a new RPG leveling system with skill points and a Hawk companion. It also seems to reject all of the alien stuff from the early games, but still has stabbing. That’s why you play an Assassin’s Creed game.

It’ll be out on October 27th and definitely won’t be exclusive to the Xbox One.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds

I love Battlegrounds, and Microsoft has a huge coup here in getting console exclusivity on it. Although the specific wording is not clear. “Xbox One Console Launch Exclusive” could be interpreted to mean that Battlegrounds‘ exclusivity is only temporary.

My hope is that the gamepad controls are improved for the Windows version as well.

It’ll be out in “Late 2017” on the Xbox One. Or you can play it now on Steam for Windows.

Deep Rock Galactic

It’s a first-person digger with space dwarves as another “console launch exclusive.”

No release date or range was given.

State of Decay 2

The zombie shooter with a twist on community-building gets a sequel. There’s a good hint of that twist in the trailer.

It’ll be exclusive to Xbox One and Windows 10 in Spring of 2018.

The Darwin Project

A shouting man appeared on stage to turn this battle royale game into an esport that appears to be completely undeserving. Way to ruin your game reveal. It’s an Xbox Console Launch Exclusive, so at least you know where not to be if you want to avoid someone shouting at you about a game.

Minecraft

It’s Minecraft, but this time they’re going to fix it so that players on many different devices can play together, excepting the original Java version. Because Java is shit.

They’re also adding 4K, other graphics options, and a “Super Duper Graphics Pack.”

This update will be out in the Fall.

Dragon Ball FighterZ

The name is dumb, the cartoon makes anime look bad. This is a fighting game that has so much shouting.

It’ll be out “Early 2018” and doesn’t appear to have any exclusivity to the Xbox One.

Black Desert

Another console launch exclusive, it’s an MMORPG without a release date.

The Last Night

A game that looks very interesting if you watch the trailer and love cyberpunk aesthetics as much as I do. Then you find out the game was created by someone who hates women and loves GamerGate. Apparently this cyberpunk dystopia is also going to have themes of what happens when progressive politics go “too far.” Expect there to be absolutely no nuance to that. I’m gonna pass on this game.

A side-scrolling game with guitars and dinosaurs and future stuff. Looks like it could be great, no release date and it is another “console launch exclusive.”

Code Vein

Another take on the post-apocalypse is here. Finally.

It’ll be out on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows, some time in 2018.

Sea of Thieves

I feel like I’ve been hearing about the multiplayer pirating in Sea of Thieves for the past 10 years. It’s actually supposed to be out early in 2018 exclusively for the Xbox One and Windows 10 stores.

Tacoma

The next game from Fullbright, developers of Gone Home, is this spacefaring spacestation exploration. After Gone Home, I am pretty excited to see how Tacoma turns out.

It’ll be out on August 2nd on Steam for Windows, Mac, and Linux as well as gog and Xbox One.

Super Lucky’s Tale

This game was originally exclusive to the Oculus VR HMD. No hints were given as to how or if this upgraded version of Lucky’s Tale will be displayed in VR on the Xbox One.

It’ll be out on November 7th for Xbox One and Windows 10.

Cuphead

Exclusive to Xbox One on console, Cuphead still looks amazingly like early cartoons. I hate Jazz and I still want to play this game.

It’ll be out for Xbox One and Steam for Windows on September 29th.

Crackdown 3

I loved Crackdown. You either loved Crackdown or haven’t played it. I hope this game is anywhere near as good as the first.

It’ll be exclusive to Xbox One and Windows 10 this November 7th.

ID@Xbox Games Montage

This is the point in the show where they realize they’re about an hour and 12 minutes in and they need to condense a bit. How about a montage.

Games Montages will be available at every games conference ever until the end of time.

My favorite part of that montage was Ooblets. It’s supposed to be bits of Pokemon, Harvest Moon, and Animal Crossing. Here is a better trailer of it:

Ooblets will be out in 2018 on Steam for Windows as well as the Xbox One. I’d like to see the shouting dude from earlier try and shout about this game. I dare him.

Ashen

Ashen is a little bit like Journey and Dark Souls to me, it’s very mysterious and has “high risk combat” according to its official website. http://www.ashen-game.com/

It’ll be on Xbox One and Windows.

Life is Strange: Before the Storm

Teenage drama is back, and it’s in Oregon. I still need to go back and finish the first game.

Life is Strange wasn’t exclusive, it’ll be out on August 31st, presumably for Xbox One as well as many other platforms.

Middle Earth: Shadow of War
I can’t find the exact trailer used during this press event. Here’s a recent story trailer:

It’s another sequel to a game I haven’t finished. The nemesis system made me want to play a real sequel to Mercenaries. Can J.R.R. Tolkein’s ghost babysit my son while I play through it?

Shadow of War will be out on October 10th on Xbox One, Steam for Windows, and PlayStation 4.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

A sequel to another fun side-scrolling metroidvania. The game’s composer appeared to be playing the piano live to backup the trailer.

No release date, but it’ll be exclusive to Xbox One and Windows 10. The original was on Steam, so we could expect that as well for this sequel.

Backwards Compatability & Crimson Skies

I’m still surprised at how well the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility program has gone. Despite leaving it up to the game’s original publishers to decide if the game can be made available for the Xbox One it has been very successful in bringing so many games onto the current generation of Xbox consoles.

Phil Spencer announced that the original Xbox would also be emulated on the Xbox One. I’m sure there are even more original Xbox developers and publishers that are out of business and won’t be able to approve their updates for backwards compatibility.

Backwards compatibility for some original Xbox games will be available later this year. Phil specifically pointed to Crimson Skies. There was no separate video available for this announcement online.

Anthem

Bioware’s new game looks a lot like Rage at first, and then turns into an open-world co-op adventure. It’s definitely not exclusive, but it’ll be out in 2018 if it doesn’t get delayed.

Overall
This is another strange Xbox event that hasn’t convinced me that I need an Xbox One when I have a more powerful desktop computer. At this point I am keeping that console around just for backwards compatibility and exclusives that either weren’t brought to Windows or that I can’t play on Windows because my Microsoft Account isn’t functioning correctly with my Windows 10 user account.

The Hot Wheels expansion looks like fun and is out for Forza Horizon 3. It’s absolutely ridiculous that the game’s expansion pass that includes Hot Wheels and the earlier Blizzard Mountain expansion aren’t bundled in any edition of Forza Horizon 3, even the one-hundred dollar Ultimate Edition.

Combining smart design with sheer horsepower, Project Scorpio hits the six-teraflop target set for it as E3 last year, thanks to a custom GPU that has been designed from the ground up for optimal performance on today’s game engines – and that runs at an unprecedentedly high clock speed for a console. The GPU is paired with 12GB of fast GDDR5 memory and a custom eight-core CPU, and the whole thing is housed in a compact body with integrated power supply and, for a console, state-of-the-art cooling.

Performance is remarkable. We saw a Forza Motorsport demo running on the machine at native 4K and Xbox One equivalent settings, and it hit 60 frames per second with a substantial performance overhead – suggesting Scorpio will hit its native 4K target across a range of content, with power to spare to spend on other visual improvements. And while 4K is the target, Microsoft is paying attention to 1080p users, promising that all modes will be available to them.

It’s interesting to me that the upgraded hardware is so similar to the Playstation 4 Pro, although the Scorpio has bigger numbers and will perform well, this re-emphasizes a theme that Microsoft has gone with since the original Xbox of promoting the technical specifications of their hardware over the games that take advantage of that hardware.

Just like with the Playstation 4 Pro, nobody should buy an Xbox until more details of the Scorpio are available like a price, a launch date, and if a game they actually want is upgraded by this hardware revision. I bet there will be a lot of used Xbox One S’, and disappointed people who bought them last year, right before this thing launches.

What a bizarre time we are in where Microsoft pre-announced the Scorpio last year before launching their Xbox One S in order to remain competitive with Sony’s Playstation 4 Pro.

Eventually, if these upgraded consoles sell well enough, it could be that new games don’t support the original revisions of the Playstation 4 and Xbox One.

One other point in the article I wanted to quote, talking about the upclocked CPUs of the Scorpio:

On the CPU side, there’s been much conjecture that Scorpio would feature AMD’s new Ryzen technology – something we thought unlikely, owing to manufacturing timelines, not to mention Microsoft telling us last year that the new console would feature eight CPU cores. All signs point to the upclocked Jaguar cores we find in Xbox One, and Scorpio’s CPU set-up is indeed an evolution of that tech, but subject to extensive customisation and the offloading of key tasks to dedicated hardware.

“So, eight cores, organised as two clusters with a total of 4MB of L2 cache. These are unique customised CPUs for Scorpio running at 2.3GHz. Alluding back to the goals, we wanted to maintain 100 per cent backwards compatibility with Xbox One and Xbox One S while also pushing the performance envelope,” says Nick Baker.

I don’t for a second believe that Microsoft couldn’t upgrade the architecture of the Xbox and retain backwards compatibility. Even if AMD’s new Ryzen platform introduced new CPU instruction, it would still have the old ones. This isn’t like going from a Power PC to x86 processor, or even as big as the 32bit to 64bit, change.

It reminds me of the time when I was still listening to Larry Hryb’s podcast where he and his guests were talking about HDMI and saying that it wasn’t an upgrade over component cables before the 360 had HDMI connections.

In this case it isn’t clear if the idea is a miscommunication of Leadbetter’s or that Baker actually was responding to a question about Ryzen and Leadbetter should have called it out, either way it is total bullshit and stymies an otherwise fine article.

Speaking of things that should have been called out, there is also this choice quote:

During his presentation, Del Castillo literally constructed a pre-production Project Scorpio unit in front of us. Bearing in mind the advanced manufacturing techniques on show here, there’s a very simple, elegant, modular design that makes the most of the space. We saw the hard drive fit into place on dampeners designed to absorb vibration, reducing error rates in and ensuring optimal data throughput.

You know what’s really elegant? Not using a spinning-disk hard drive with fragile platters in 2017. Nobody buys a computer with those anymore. They only continue to persist in consoles. Nothing is advanced or elegant about dampening the vibrations of an old hard drive. It will be a real upgrade when we can get to solid-state drives everywhere.

Microsoft recently announced their Xbox Game Pass subscription service.

Most people are comparing it to a Netflix for games, it’s not a bad comparison excepting that while Netflix streams, the games with Microsoft’s service will download to an Xbox One.

The selection of games available will be pretty small, “over 100” when the service becomes available later this spring for $10 a month. The games will change every month, and once the game is cycled out you lose access to it. You do get a discount for purchases of games in the Game Pass library. The Xbox Game Pass games are mostly older from the Xbox One and 360, no real newer options though there isn’t a final list of what will be available.

There’s nothing exactly comparable to this from Sony, their Playstation Now service on the PS4 and Windows is $15 a month at its cheapest (3 month subscription), only streams older Playstation 3 games. The PlayStation 4 has no backwards compatibility with the PS3 otherwise.

Both Microsoft and Sony include “free” games every month with the subscription they charge for online play. I dropped my Xbox Gold subscription because I wasn’t playing online regularly, and the games they were offering weren’t as good as the Playstation Plus games.

Nintendo is going to include free games with their online service for the Switch, but final pricing is unknown, and they’ll all be swapped out every month.

There’s nothing at all like it from Valve on Steam or Windows, though the third-party Humble Bundle has a monthly subscription for $12 that acts like a blind box. Subscribing to that only gives you access to the next month’s games.

There are a lot of questions left to be answered. Games are different from movies, you might take more than a month to play through something and even some games could stick around for multiple months you might be coming up on the end of the month wondering if the one you’re playing is going to cycle out.

When the original Xbox One was revealed, there was quite the uproar as to its size and design. Microsoft didn’t change the overall shape of the Xbox One S, but what it did change makes it look less like my grandmother’s VCR. It’s smaller, white, and offers an interesting use of textures to various parts of its body. While the holes located at the front of the console appear to be for aesthetics, the holes surrounding its perimeter are obviously for venting purposes as I can spot smaller vents that aim directly into them.

It also finally did away with the infamous Xbox power brick as its power supply has been squeezed into the new console’s body. Without a power brick to weigh it down, the Xbox One S feels more portable than ever when combined with its reduction in size and weight. It also has done away with a dedicated Kinect port, which we’re sure won’t surprise many considering how Microsoft has been slowly steering away from motion-based gaming.

It also displays 4K UHD Blu-ray discs as well as upscaling games and other videos to 4K if you have the appropriate display. It sounds like a good upgrade, until you realize that the other new Xbox, codenamed Scorpio, will be out next year with a healthier tech upgrade that actually has more powerful guts than this Xbox One S.

Halo 5 has 12 v 12 multiplayer that looks like battlefield and what looks like 4 player co-op.

Something new from the folks behind Metroid Prime but it was just a trailer instead of gameplay footage. Robots and power spheres in the desert called ReCore.

Xbox One, like the 360, will have limited backwards compatibility with some Xbox 360 games. There’s a list of 100 games that’ll be available later this year. People on the invite-only dashboard preview program can get access to some of them today. More games will be added later on until Microsoft stops caring and they have already put the onus on developers/publishers to approve their games for backwards compatibility during the conference.

Fallout 4 mods will work on the Xbox One at no cost. Fallout 4 comes out this November.

Cuphead, 2D platformer that looks like the original Mickey Mouse and old Betty Boop cartoons. Exclusive. 2016.

Unfinished games come to Xbox with Game Preview. It’s Microsoft’s answer to Steam’s Early Access. Each game will have some kind of free trial version. The Long Dark, Sheltered, Elite: Dangerous, DayZ are the first announced games for it. All are alreadyon Steam. Elite: Dangerous and The Long Dark will be available later today.

Rise of the Tomb Raider, end of the year. Xbox exclusive. Pre-order now to commit your money before you know if it’s any good or not.

The rumored Rare game collection is real. RC Pro-Am, Solar JetmanKiller-Instinct, Battletoads, Blast Corps, 30 games total. $30. It’s called Rare Reply and it’ll be out August 4th. Battletoads still sucks. No Goldeneye, no Donkey Kong Country, of course.

Sea of Thieves from Rare, exclusive multiplayer Pirate adventuring.

Fable Legends. Free2play for Windows and Xbox.

A bunch of VR stuff. They’re working with Valve VR as well as Oculus to display games in 2d in both headsets when streamed from an Xbox One to Windows. Mixed-reality with Microsoft’s Hololens.

Apparently Mojang is pronounced Mo-yang. What.

Hololens will work with Minecraft. It’s 2D and displayed wherever as long as you have a Hololens device. Or it can be displayed on a physical table and it’s augmented reality-ified. Nifty.

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. August 25th. Xbox One version of the first Gears. 1-week public beta starts today.

New Gears of War. Looks good. Dark. Seems less bro-ver-the-top. It’s just called Gears 4. Late 2016.

There’s a new Xbox One UI coming.

I just got an e-mail from the Elite: Dangerous developer, Frontier, encouraging me to buy Elite for the Xbox One with a £5 gift code for the Elite store if I do. I don’t really see any reason why I would do that when I have it on my computer and can display that on my TV with a long HDMI cable and a wireless controller. Or a Steam Link. Or a Steam Machine.

No Call of Duty at this event, no mention of Xbox on the Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 banner outside the E3 building.

Console gaming headsets are in a weird place. On one hand, they’re relatively cheap and plentiful. On the other hand, that low price point means the drivers inside aren’t great. Hardware manufacturers like to cover this up with bass response, the PX21 set is no exception.

Though I don’t think you can even find a headset for consoles that doesn’t color the output, it isn’t any excuse for making cheap junk.

The big downsides are often similar across manufactures and models, comfort for extended sessions and quality.

TurtleBeach’s PX21 headset looks fine on paper, it has a great mic that is super-flexible, and is the first headset from TurtleBeach to support the PS3. It also supports the 360 and PC gaming.

The immediate downside is simple.

There is a terrible hissing noise.

You can minimize it by swapping out the included red/white RCA bypass jacks for going straight to your TV or hi-fi tuner setup’s headphone audio out jack, and then adjusting that system’s volume up. Then you turn the volume down on the PX 21’s built-in amp.

But that still doesn’t eliminate the hiss, and it is extremely annoying during any part of a game that has quiet spots.

Games with quiet spots are why I own a PS3, I don’t play just shooters; I play games like Heavy Rain and I don’t want the quiet points in games to be marred by the ear-piercing whine these produce. Even the recent Red Dead Redemption sounds like crap and gives me a headache due to this headset’s hissing noise.

Of course to hook them up they need to be plugged into the PS3 (or other device) via USB for power. On the 360 you’ve got a special bypass cable to chat through the controller. On the PS3 the connection is simpler since the chat audio goes straight through the USB cable.

This means the headset is really mixing two inputs, the game connection over the RCA (or headphone jack) input and the chat audio over the USB wire or the supplied 360 bypass cable.

This design of two mixed inputs is either brilliant or stupid. Brilliant because it works around every situation you might want to use it in, stupid because the hardware TurtleBeach has chosen is so cheap it can’t really give you a clean sound.

The PX21 headset is otherwise extremely lightweight & comfortable. It also covers the technical bases of supporting the PS3, 360, and PC gaming. I hope TurtleBeach will go back to the drawing board to design a headset that doesn’t hiss, even if it means raising the price slightly. Maybe in some magical laboratory somewhere these things don’t hiss, but other reviews corroborate my testimony. As it is I cannot recommend this headset unless you only play loud games that have little-to-no quiet points, like Modern Warfare 2.

Even then you should keep your receipt, I returned the PX21 headset to Best Buy after just 24 hours.